War cuts down a lifetime of possibilities
I have thought of Walter Snyder from time to time over the years
but without fail around Christmas
We met on a spring day at Sherman School in Toledo when we were
8. He walked across the playground on my first morning there and
asked what school I had transferred from.
When I told him, he said
”
Sherman’s better
”
and punched me in the mouth. I was stunned but about to hit back
when Miss Bradley hurried over to break it up.
War cuts down a lifetime of possibilities
I have thought of Walter Snyder from time to time over the years but without fail around Christmas
We met on a spring day at Sherman School in Toledo when we were 8. He walked across the playground on my first morning there and asked what school I had transferred from.
When I told him, he said “Sherman’s better” and punched me in the mouth. I was stunned but about to hit back when Miss Bradley hurried over to break it up.
The following day I tripped him as he was waiting to climb the monkey bars and we both were taken to the principal. During the next four years, Walter and I often set upon each other. Fortunately, we took opposite directions to our homes after classes so seldom had an opportunity beyond the school itself.
We were sworn into Troop 80 of the Boy Scouts of America in the same ceremony. Scoutmaster Al King must have heard of our running feud because he seemed to be talking directly to Walter and me when he addressed the five new Scouts: “I won’t tolerate any fighting in this troop. If there’s a fight here, the boy responsible will be kicked out.”
Walter and I remained very much aware of each other after that but fought no more. That did not mean that we became friends. At Camp Miakonda where Scouts learned the great outdoors during summer, I found my cot short-sheeted the first night. The second night, Walter’s scream of outrage when he encountered a fish in his cot was sweet to my ears.
Our eighth-grade teachers tried to instill the social graces in their wards and held monthly after-school dances for those students who cared to attend. Walter and I were enamored of the same girl, Pat Taber, but demonstrated our impeccable manners to each other with icy reserve. She preferred Bob Gurney anyhow.
After graduation, Walter and I went to different high schools and rarely saw each other. He enlisted in the National Guard while a junior and showed up at Odesky’s Sweet Shop one day in his uniform. Two months later his unit was activated and sent to Korea.
Just before Christmas vacation began in 1950, Vernon Heckman hurried to my house with grim news. “I saw Frank Snyder, Walter’s brother, last night. Walter was killed in Korea!”
He and I had known each other half our lifetime but had shaken hands only once, that day as he was leaving Odesky’s and I had wished him luck. It was not so much guilt that I felt as the stark knowledge that a young life had been cut off needlessly.
Walter would never finish his education, find a career, raise a family or any of the other pursuits common to humanity. A sniper had spotted him on a frozen hillside in a faraway country and Walter Snyder was dead at 17.
What a senseless waste is war.
